29 May 2003
Unclear Channels

Below is a particularly florid piece of prose (even for The Register) but pretty much dead on. Why would I, a pretty dyed in the wool libertarian, be against such a "deregulation" move? Because while in the "free market" a monopoly could not sustain itself for long as more and more new forces enter the market to take it on, we have anything but a "free market" in media content or other "intellectual property" in general. Copyright and patent law is being used to constrain and direct the market to the advantage of the larger players - content is what media "sells", after all. Therefore once this deregulation takes effect you will see increased concentration, rather than, as the case when the airlines were first deregulated, increased competition.

If you're going to deregulate this market, then damnit, deregulate it! That means, of course, restructuring onerous IP laws to accurately reflect a free market, rathen than a monopoly as is currectly the case. If it were done in this fashion, then the barriers to entry would truely be lowered, and you could expect to see greater diversity. As it stands, well, I hope everybody likes ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox and CNN on TV and Clear Channel 'national' radio for your drive time ....

Clear Channelization of America to commence Monday. Opinion Media pigopolist coup d'etat on schedule [The Register]

00:00 /Copywrongs | 0 comments | permanent link

Orthodox Christianity lowers your cholesterol

This was just too good a headline to not post ...


Orthodox Christianity lowers your cholesterol [Science Blog]

00:00 /Humor | 0 comments | permanent link

Bullshit Alert

Bullshit alert!

The following article, while it's pretty on target with the business analysis, contains a serious technical half-truth.

Apple did not"disable Rendezvous" - Rendezvous is a networking technology that is content agnostic: it doesn't know if it's streaming pirated music or sharing an Office document. Apple limited the Rendezvous access of a specific program, iTunes, to it's own subnet. This is not a trivial distinction - I can still stream music on my LAN just fine. I just can't stream music over the Internet via iTunes, whioh would not only piss off the RIAA, as the article points out, but which could also cause a serious security concern. I know I always like to know that I'm running a server ....

Apple Finds the Future for Online Music Sales. Apple Computer's new service, iTunes Music Store, has been the first real success story in the long effort to sell music over the Internet. By Neil Strauss. [New York Times: NYT HomePage]

00:00 /Technology | 0 comments | permanent link

Macs and Music

Here's a more accurate analysis of Apple's move into online music sales - this one lacks the bullshit from the New York Times....

Microsoft, again: Apple's old nemesis. While the Mac maker commands today's headlines, it faces a series of obstacles from the Windows empire ranging from software licenses to influence in media industries. [CNET News.com]

00:00 /Technology | 0 comments | permanent link